in congress for three-fifths of their slaves;[1] 2nd, that requiring the giving up of any runaway slaves to their masters; 3rd, that pledging the physical force of the whole country to suppress insurrections, i. e.. attempts to gain freedom by such means as the framers of the instrument themselves used.
Act of Feb. 12, 1793—Provides that any master or his agent may seize any person whom he claim's as a "fugitive from service," and take him before a judge of the U. S. court, or magistrate of the city or county where he is taken, and the magistrate, on proof, in support of the claim, to his satisfaction, must give the claimant a certificate authorizing the removal of such fugitive to the state he fled from.[2]
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.—The act of congress incorporating Washington city, gives the corporation power to prescribe the terms and conditions on which free negroes and mulattoes may reside in the city. City Laws. 6 and 11. By this authority, the city in 1827 enacted that any free colored person coming there to reside, should give the mayor satisfactory evidence of his freedom, and enter into bond with two freehold sureties, in the sum of five hundred dollars, for his good conduct, to be renewed each year for three years; or failing to do so, must leave the city, or be committed to the work-house, for not more than one year, and if he still refuse to go, may be again committed for the same period, and so on.—Ib. 198.
Colored persons residing in the city, who cannot prove their title to freedom, shall be imprisoned as absconding slaves.— Ib. 198.
- ↑ By the operation of this provision, twelve slaveholding states, whose white population only equals that of New York and Ohio, send to congress 24 senators and 102 representatives, while these two states only send 4 senators and 53 representatives.
- ↑ Thus it may be seen that a man may be doomed to slavery by an authority not considered sufficient to settle a claim of twenty dollars.
